I'm making a Real Time Strategy game

[Destructionator XV]

Talking to my brother about Command and Conquer, Warcraft, and Starcraft and started designing my second attempt at an RTS (never finished the first attempt). M3 is taking a long time, partially because GUI design is fucking boring, so I am putting it on secondary for a week or two while I do this quick project.

Have a few ideas on how it will be done.

Set budget. There will be no mining or massing peasants. You have a set budget from the homeland and you need to decide how you want to spend it.

Supply lines. Units and bases have set supplies that go down on time (fuel for vehicles, ships, and aircraft, rations for men, ammo for both). Your main base gets regular resupply by sea and air from the homeland, and from there, you must distribute it using trucks, airplanes, or ships to your forward bases and men. Big part of the game would be protecting your trucks and cargo ships while trying to cut off the enemy's trucks and cargo ships.

Space warfare. You can build a space warfare center from which you build, deploy, and control satellites of war. You can have survelliance satellites, anti-satellite satellites to destroy enemy space assets, and nuclear missile satellites that can launch nuclear missiles at a target from space. You can also cut off enemy satellite usage by launching missiles at them from the ground or disabling the enemy ground control center.

You can have transport helicopters to move in infantry quickly, combat airplanes to shoot down enemy aircraft, and bombers to attack ground facilities. Range and number of missions will be limited by fuel tank size and cost of fuel.

Cargo ships, transport ships, missile ships, submarines, and maybe battleships (because they are cool). Maybe even aircraft carriers, but not sure about that.

Of course, infantry and tanks. And supply trucks and armoured personnel carriers.

Ground structures will be many. Anti aircraft guns, anti ship shore batteries, ground based missiles, and machine guns for defense.

Construction yard, war factory, barracks, ship yard, and air strips for the obligitory RTS unit construction.

Supply depots to store fuel, ammo, and rations for your troops.

Power plants to power your ground structures.

Radar, sonar and observation towers to see enemy troops coming.

Special structures like the space warfare command center and perhaps Gap generators like Command and Conquer are all possibilities, but no decisions have been made with all them yet.



I think the supply lines and set budget is what will make this game interesting. We also have a few more ideas in the works, like slightly randomized soldiers to make them a little more individual.

Programming will be started pretty soon, and graphically, it will be very primitive. Graphics take me a long time to do, and I would like to be able to play this quickly so I can get back to other projects (namely, the RPG toolkit, but I have a few other ideas on the skillet too)

And thoughts on this? Sound like a good game?

[Stofsk]

What about a TBS instead? I'm thinking something like MOO-classic or whatever.

EDIT: Didn't mean to sound like an arsehole. It's just that RTS' are a dime a dozen, while TBS' are a rarer thing.

[Destructionator XV]

What about a TBS instead? I'm thinking something like MOO-classic or whatever.

The only one I have ever played is Heroes of Might and Magic, and I'm not even sure that is even the genre specifically you are talking about.

If you bring in things like Final Fantasy Tactics or Shining Force, I have one of those style games on my to do list already, but those are more RPG than strategy.


So two answers:
1) RTS is what we want to play right now, so that is what I will make right now.

2) My inexperience in playing these games will not be of any help in making one.

Maybe at a later time though, I can look back into it.

[Stofsk]

I like the idea of a StarCraft type game where there are no SCVs but combat units need supply shuttles or such the like. You build supply depots the closer your front gets to the enemy, so that your supply chain gets shorter.

Excellent potential for guerrila style raids. I'm not sure if graphically StarCraft was what you were aiming for, I only bring it up because I've been playing it recently and I hate spamming SCVs to mine for resources. I prefer Total Annihilation's take on the matter: plant a generator down and you've got a certain amount of energy, plant a mine down and you've got a certain amount of ore coming in. I like the idea of mining, I just don't like the idea of highly vulnerable peasants being used.

I like how Dune 2 did it: you mined Spice, your harvester get's picked up by a carryall, which then takes the harvester to the refinery, which then takes all the spice and sells it, which then gives you money (which is the resource you use) for which to purchase your military warmachine.

Energy is used to power all base systems.

And then you have supply lines to keep your units up at full strength - if the supply lines get disrupted your units have to fight at quarter strength; if the lines get severed it's at half strength. Note that because there are no SCVs (if we go by the StarCraft analogy) then your combat units can't be repaired (assuming we go by the Terran model) - which is where supply shuttles come into it. They keep your tanks or whatever furnished with repairs and ammo, keeping them at full strength.

Buildings are interesting. To go by Dune 2 you need a sensor/radar base to even have a minimap. Upgrades to this would be satellites (get to that in a minute). There would be power generators which have to be connected to the other base buildings. Generators would come in two kinds: smaller generators which need more fuel to burn (thus they're cheaper to set up but cost more to keep going in the long run), and bigger generators which can power a whole base but are expensive and take time to finish building - but once built it can even pay for itself (I'm thinking of fusion here where as the smaller generators would be fossil fuels).

You build barracks but you don't 'build' troops from them. Rather, these set how large your army can be (they'd be analogous to StarCraft's supply depot). Similarly you build a Factory and a Hangar, but they don't build tanks or aircraft but set how many of each you can have. So how do you get your troops?

Depending on how futuristic you want it, you can either have a sea port, airport, or spaceport (or if TA, galaxy gate) be what determines *where* you get your troops. (Also, if you play with futuristic toys then a spaceport is where you can deploy satellites to give you coverage of the battlefield and burn away the fog of war)

Base defence would be SAM missile batteries (anti-air), machine gun pillboxes (anti-personnel) and heavy cannons (anti-armour).

Thoughts so far?

[Stofsk]

Forgot to add: MASH buildings as well so that your infantry can get medevaced to a hospital.

[SirNitram]

One common complaint is the 'Paper Rocks Scissor' approach which renders tanks blasting away at infantry to no effect. The obvious correction is to make infantry as susceptible to anti-tank weapons as they should be, but making the AT weapons less accurate(At least against infantry). This means that getting a single tank out can wipe the floor with your opponent, who hasn't tech'd up yet.

This itself leads to having to make tanks very resource-intensive, which makes them scarce(And few things are more satisfying than a huge force of tanks with support in an RTS, sadly..).

One solution is to have varying effects for levels of support disruption. I'd draw an analogy to Desert Storm: Tanks were outracing their fuel tankers. If a tank gets out of range of it's current supplies, it'll slow. If supplies are disrupted AND it's out of range, or if it's supply chain is stopped, the tanks stop. They can still fire weapons, but they become stationary until the chain is restored.

Aircraft have it worse: Their range is defined not by supply lines, but by where they launch from, and keeping 'station' over an area counts towards their range. Bombers and the like should be called in from off-map, but consume some of your 'resources' each go. 'I'd like a B-2 to come by and smash this flat..'

Infantry would probably perform best beyond supply range. While they'll have inferior combat ability(Exhaustion, limited ammo), they'll still function and be able to protect sites for new supply links.


On another topic.. How different do you want your sides? That's one aspect of Generals and Starcraft I genuinely liked: The playstyles demanded you act differently.

[Destructionator XV]

I like the idea of a StarCraft type game where there are no SCVs but combat units need supply shuttles or such the like. You build supply depots the closer your front gets to the enemy, so that your supply chain gets shorter.

Yeah, exactly what I have in mind. My idea here is your base would be in a corner of the map, always. From this corner, ships from the homeland send in your supplies to the main base, then you can redistribute the supplies to your other bases (via trucks, ships, or airdrops), and from the forward bases, to your troops themselves.

If the enemy can get subs or something into your corner and sink the ships coming in from the homeland, you are basically finished.


For tech level, I basically have Command and Conquer: Red Alert in mind.

Excellent potential for guerrila style raids. I'm not sure if graphically StarCraft was what you were aiming for, I only bring it up because I've been playing it recently and I hate spamming SCVs to mine for resources.

Graphically, I am not going for much. I want to whip this up quickly, and graphics take me a loooooooong time to make, and program if you get more advanced.

In my mind, I see Warcraft 1 or maybe Warcraft 2 looking graphics. Nothing fancy.

I prefer Total Annihilation's take on the matter: plant a generator down and you've got a certain amount of energy, plant a mine down and you've got a certain amount of ore coming in. I like the idea of mining, I just don't like the idea of highly vulnerable peasants being used.

Every game does mining though, I want to get away from that.

My plan is you have a set budget from the homeland to spend on new troops and armour, and also to maintain what you have. Your budget must afford fuel, ammo, and rations for your current army.

This budget would not change, so you must spend it well. No SCV spamming: if I wanted to play a resource war, I would put Starcraft in.

My brother was thinking about adding budget changes depending on how the war is going and things like public opinion back home, but I am probably not going to do that because it is easier said than coded. Again, I want to be able to play this rather soon, before my attention span runs out.

Energy is used to power all base systems.

Yeah, I definitly like power plants. In Command and Conquer (which I believe used the same engine as Dune), if your power goes out, your minimap goes dark and automatic defenses stop functioning, among other construction problems.

Power plants were a nice soft target you could hit with missiles to quickly fuck up your opponent.

And then you have supply lines to keep your units up at full strength - if the supply lines get disrupted your units have to fight at quarter strength; if the lines get severed it's at half strength.

My plan is bascially each unit has two main bars: ammo and fuel / food. If he runs out of ammo, he can't shoot (I am thinking rifles would have near infinite ammo, but rocket launchers and stuff would be limited). If a tank runs out of fuel, it can't move. If a soldier runs out of food, he fights poorly, and if left that way, dies.

You would recharge these bars by bringing in a loaded unit to their proximity to share his units. Supply trucks would be able to carry enough to resupply many units, but have the disadvantage of being an obvious target.


This system is incredibly easy to code, and incorporates the importance of supply trucks and depots with little additional work (from the programming end).

To go by Dune 2 you need a sensor/radar base to even have a minimap.

Thinking the same thing. In addition to needing it just to have a minimap, I want it to not be continuously updating either: it pings it's range every five seconds (real time) or something, updating your map each ping.

If you time a strike properly, you could use that lag to your advantage. Or perhaps jamming to mess it up too.


Agree entirely on your power paragraph...

You build barracks but you don't 'build' troops from them. Rather, these set how large your army can be (they'd be analogous to StarCraft's supply depot). Similarly you build a Factory and a Hangar, but they don't build tanks or aircraft but set how many of each you can have. So how do you get your troops?

I was thinking about this myself, and was undecided if I wanted to go Warcraft / Starcraft style or if troops and equipment would also be send in on that ship from the homeland.

I must admit, I am leaning toward the latter, but not yet decided.

Depending on how futuristic you want it, you can either have a sea port, airport, or spaceport (or if TA, galaxy gate) be what determines *where* you get your troops.

Yeah, and this location would somehow need to connect back to where they are actually coming from: edge of the map or whatever, just so the enemy can mine your harbours or submarine blockades, etc.

(Also, if you play with futuristic toys then a spaceport is where you can deploy satellites to give you coverage of the battlefield and burn away the fog of war)

Yup. I want some satellite stuff, mainly spy satellites to see enemy bases from above, and maybe nuke satellites to rain down death from above. And of course, some way to shoot down enemy satellites.

Base defence would be SAM missile batteries (anti-air), machine gun pillboxes (anti-personnel) and heavy cannons (anti-armour).

Agreed.

Thoughts so far?

Looks like we are thinking the same thing on many aspects here, so that is very good.

[Destructionator XV]

One common complaint is the 'Paper Rocks Scissor' approach which renders tanks blasting away at infantry to no effect. The obvious correction is to make infantry as susceptible to anti-tank weapons as they should be, but making the AT weapons less accurate(At least against infantry). This means that getting a single tank out can wipe the floor with your opponent, who hasn't tech'd up yet.

This itself leads to having to make tanks very resource-intensive, which makes them scarce(And few things are more satisfying than a huge force of tanks with support in an RTS, sadly..).

Agreed.

If a tank gets out of range of it's current supplies, it'll slow.

The plan I have in mind right now is a tank has a fuel bar, and the more it moves, the lower that bar goes. If a fuel truck or supply depot is nearby, it just needs to stop and gas up. If not, it can keep on going until it runs out of fuel, at which point, it can no longer move, and the tankers have to come to it.

Aircraft have it worse: Their range is defined not by supply lines, but by where they launch from, and keeping 'station' over an area counts towards their range.

Yup, again, I would use the fuel bar: more time in the air means fuel gets burned. They also need to remember to have enough to get back and land, otherwise that multi million dollar aircraft simply crashes.

My plan is airplanes need an airfield to land, however, helicopters can land almost anywhere. A helicopter could land next to a fuel depot and gas up, but an airplane needs to find an airfield to land.

Bombers and the like should be called in from off-map, but consume some of your 'resources' each go. 'I'd like a B-2 to come by and smash this flat..'

I'm not sure if they would need to come from off map, but that is certainly a possibility. Fuel limitations from airfields on the map might be good enough.

But either way, probably make their bombs be rather random if not guided by something on the ground, maybe like how Starcraft does nukes with the Ghost unit, except you can fire without guidance, jut you probably won't hit what you want to hit.

Infantry would probably perform best beyond supply range. While they'll have inferior combat ability(Exhaustion, limited ammo), they'll still function and be able to protect sites for new supply links.

Indeed. I am also thinking about letting infantry capture enemy supply depots. Once you blast away the defenders, send a few men inside to take it for yourself. That would also give them a use that tanks could not possibly do.

On another topic.. How different do you want your sides? That's one aspect of Generals and Starcraft I genuinely liked: The playstyles demanded you act differently.

Right now, I am thinking just make both sides exactly the same. After all, that works for chess.

The other idea we have is make different high tech units, like the difference between Allies and Soviets in Command and Conquer.

I doubt I will go with anything radically different, at least not a first, because that increases development time. But if I code it well, I should be able to add other types of units or sides later on.

But, I have not made any specific decisions here yet. With units, I know I want men with rifles, tanks, airplanes, and naval ships. Haven't gone into much more detail than that yet.

[SirNitram]

One option to consider is to base 'bonus resources' for controlling percentages or certain objectives on the map. Strikes me as easy to code: 'Control' is a certain distance from each unit, without interference from the enemy. Above a certain percentage, get a bonus. Over a certain region(Say, a bridge), get a bonus. Both, either, maybe map-sensitive.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

My plan is bascially each unit has two main bars: ammo and fuel / food. If he runs out of ammo, he can't shoot (I am thinking rifles would have near infinite ammo, but rocket launchers and stuff would be limited). If a tank runs out of fuel, it can't move. If a soldier runs out of food, he fights poorly, and if left that way, dies.

You would recharge these bars by bringing in a loaded unit to their proximity to share his units. Supply trucks would be able to carry enough to resupply many units, but have the disadvantage of being an obvious target.

That would require some *heavy* amount of micromanagement, except if the player can "pre-program" the behaviour of the supply trucks so she/he doesn't need to constantly clicking on each individual truck to re-load a particular unit.

I believe the charm of a good FPS comes from its simplicity; less micromanagement, and less clicking on individual units to execute mundane tasks. If you want to include more parameters (ammo, fuel) to increase complexity, then make the units smart enough to execute the mundane job of refueling and re-supplying while the player can focus on the bigger picture.

[Destructionator XV]

One option to consider is to base 'bonus resources' for controlling percentages or certain objectives on the map. Strikes me as easy to code: 'Control' is a certain distance from each unit, without interference from the enemy. Above a certain percentage, get a bonus. Over a certain region(Say, a bridge), get a bonus. Both, either, maybe map-sensitive.

That sounds like a pretty good plan.

That would require some *heavy* amount of micromanagement, except if the player can "pre-program" the behaviour of the supply trucks so she/he doesn't need to constantly clicking on each individual truck to re-load a particular unit.

Of course you could. Normally, you click one, and set where it is going and from where it gets it's supplies. It keeps going back and forth between those points automatically as needed. Similar to patrol or mining in Starcraft etc.

You would have to do a little more control when moving forward though, if you leave them on automatic, they would be even easier targets on the front.

[Something Awesome]

That would require some *heavy* amount of micromanagement, except if the player can "pre-program" the behaviour of the supply trucks so she/he doesn't need to constantly clicking on each individual truck to re-load a particular unit.

Of course you could. Normally, you click one, and set where it is going and from where it gets it's supplies. It keeps going back and forth between those points automatically as needed. Similar to patrol or mining in Starcraft etc.

You would have to do a little more control when moving forward though, if you leave them on automatic, they would be even easier targets on the front.

Also, we were thinking the supply trucks would behave like mobile Protoss Shield Batteries: units within range are automatically replenished.

And if you're going with realism with bringing troops from the mainland (this reminds me a lot of ordering units from CHOAM in Dune), I say public opinion should matter even more. If the war's going poorly, Congress can slice the budget, and you won't be killing as many of our boys. SirNitram's idea is pretty much perfect for that. I want to receive angry messages from Senators, though. My suggestion is use his idea for the game mechanics, but I want the Congress flavor too.

And are you still considering day/night and spec ops? It would be so cool to have a team of Seals slip in under the cover of night and rig some power plants to blow at noon the next day. "Never know what hit 'em."

[Destructionator XV]

Also, we were thinking the supply trucks would behave like mobile Protoss Shield Batteries: units within range are automatically replenished.

Yup.

And if you're going with realism with bringing troops from the mainland (this reminds me a lot of ordering units from CHOAM in Dune), I say public opinion should matter even more. If the war's going poorly, Congress can slice the budget, and you won't be killing as many of our boys.

Maybe toss in casualties too. Just need a mathematical formula on how it should be modeled.

And are you still considering day/night and spec ops?

Indeed.

[Hotfoot]

I really liked the supply system in Conquest: Frontier Wars. In order to share supplies between systems, you need to have a jumpgate built over a wormhole. To keep ships in supply, you either needed to keep them inside the supply radius of a supply depot, or order some supply ships to tag along. Without supplies, they couldn't use special abilities or fire.

[Destructionator XV]

Bringing my thread back from the dead (amazing how time flies) because I can and to report that I have started moving into the coding phase of this.

I am currently writing the audio and joystick code for M3, which happens to be shared with this as well (and my space shooter too). Along with it, I have decided to write a full game engine framework for use for a variety of 2d games. (M3 has its own graphics and keyboard engine though).

Shared code is a Good Thing. After I wrap up this framework, which will take no more than a day or two more, I return to M3 and get its alpha out. That will take 2-3 weeks. Then I begin the meaty work on this, pulling in the engine framework code. Odds are within one month or so I will have a alpha ready. This will progress much faster than M3 for a number of reasons, one is I am taking existing code for this, two is I am not writing much user interface (probably a map editor and that is is), and three is I am hard coding the units and objectives, unlike M3 which is a generic engine and framework that is designed to be very extensible. A system scope like that takes forever; this is far more limited and should move right along. It is being built on top of SDL and the map editor will be built with Qt. Those will be some ~10-15 MB of downloads, but if you do it once for any of my programs, it is good for all of them, so not that big of a deal.


So those of you looking forward to this, it is not forgotten, and I am going to guesstimate late December to be the initial release date.